Chris Ingham, MOJO,
November 1996
They quit touring in ’74; broke up in ’80. Now the arch hipster auteurs of literate, cynical, smart-ass rock jazz – the creators of some of the most substantial, nourishing sounds of the rock era, the studioholics of the ’70s – have looked to their pensions, and taken their greatest hits on the road.
The climb down from the dignified heights of non-reunion is notoriously inelegant but, hey, this is the Dan: Becker and Fagen with newfound live confidence and a kick-ass jazz-chopcentric band clipping into a song bag full of pearls. I mean, look at the set list. Isn’t your mouth watering? How dull could it be?
Quite, I’m afraid. We’ll only blame Walter and Donald insofar as their admitted moolah-related motivation persuaded them to be booked into arenas. This was a bad idea for two reasons. First, much of the Steely Dan magic lies in the pristine detail of the fine-tuned groove, the meticulous voicing of intricate harmony and the master-chef blend of texture. Tonight, everything is reduced to a lumpen Wembley mulch. The indistinct bass’n’drums chemistry means the usually irresistible lazy shuffle of ‘Chain Lightning’ and sprightly minimalism of ‘Hey Nineteen’ leaves heads curiously unbobbing. The sinister space and backing-singer snap of ‘Babylon Sisters’ is lost, the spine remaining resolutely unchilled. Fagen’s menacing whine drifts in and out of the picture, totally indecipherable. Without these arresting particulars and the absence of any break-the-mood dynamics (no ballads, no acoustic numbers, everyone plays all the time) you end up noticing how many medium tempo, fat fusion-plodders Steely Dan do, which misses the point by a mile.
Second, arena gigs require big triggers to fire them and the Dan don’t have many of those. Their customary rave-up ‘Bodhisattva’ is inexplicably absent, and potential singalongs ‘Reelin’ In The Years’ and ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ are re-riffed and re-harmonised, the latter given a cruel key change just before a chorus, just in case anyone is having too vulgar a time. Visually, the most that happens is Fagen leaving his keyboard, Ellington-style, to conduct the big-finish kicks. The Kings Of Cool in this space just look miserable. The Dan are so anti-stadium-gestures that when the lights get excitable near the end, you’re embarrassed for them.
Of course, there are pleasures. ‘Green Flower Street’ skips and skims immaculately. ‘Home At Last’ benefits from the cavernous sonority, becoming darker and more vivid than the Aja version. There’s a new Becker/Fagen song, ‘Jack Of Speed’ (‘which we hope to have out sometime in our lifetime’), on first hearing an unremarkable minor blues thing; let’s hope there’s resonance to be enjoyed in time. Becker’s guitar playing is a delight, tasty and thoughtful, a nice contrast to the mind-blowing jazz-metal of Wayne Krantz, and Fagen plays sparkly keyboard, consistently more interesting than the garrulous solos of ‘Windham Hill Recording Artist’ John Beasley.
And let’s get the carping in perspective. The show’s current incarnation may not add much to their legacy, but I listened to Steely Dan for four hours before the gig, two and a quarter during, countless since, and I haven’t had nearly enough. Their oeuvre is as significant and rewarding as any. So perhaps we’ll forgive them for not giving us the perfect gig as they once made perfect records.
Then again, at £25 a seat, more than half the price of their essential Citizen Steely Dan box set, perhaps we won’t.